NEWS ANALYSIS
Feigning Peace While Waging War

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared “all-out, no-nonsense war” against Communist guerillas last August 5. A few days later, the government’s highest-ranking peace negotiators seemed to be rushing to finally forge a comprehensive peace agreement with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). But it’s only the government distorting the peace process itself to serve its war-mongering ways.

By SANDRA NICOLAS
Bulatlat.com

The Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) is stage-managing a collapse of the stalled peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) to help justify the president’s “all-out, no-nonsense war.”

Various GRP officials in separate statements last week gave the impression of a renewed GRP effort to finally forge a comprehensive peace agreement and of an impending resumption of the stalled talks.

Chief GRP peace panel negotiator Silvestre Bello III said they started working on a draft on August 7 for presentation to Ms. Arroyo around August 16-17. Shadowy “back channel” negotiator and presidential adviser for special concerns Norberto Gonzales said the final peace agreement would be proposed to the NDFP as soon as the Cabinet approves it. House Speaker Jose de Venecia optimistically said three preliminary agreements could be signed in the next three to four weeks and the final peace agreement in the next few months.

Yet there is no such feigned optimism on the other side of the negotiating table. Chief NDFP negotiator Luis Jalandoni called the GRP statements “threatening and deceptive.” NDFP chief political consultant Jose Ma. Sison meanwhile said that the NDFP National Council was “re-examining the policy of peace negotiations… and considering whether to terminate such negotiations or hold them in abeyance until the Macapagal regime is replaced by another regime willing to negotiate in accordance [with agreements].”

Militarization and repression

The seeming discordance on the GRP side is more apparent than real. On the surface they give the impression of a good cop-bad cop routine delivering an ultimatum for surrender. However, the timing of the seeming peace offensive – so soon after the declaration of all-out war –  and especially the GRP’s moves outside the rapidly disintegrating peace process are revealing.

The most important element on the GRP side is how the militarists, spearheaded by Defense Secretary Gen. Angelo Reyes, decisively gained the upper hand since the U.S. declared its “war on terrorism” last year. Hawks previously had to contend with others in government who were advocating a political settlement with the NDFP.

But the U.S.’ unequivocal stand on, by its view, the “terrorist” status of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) has defined the GRP’s political line on the matter and undercut the government’s more moderate elements. The U.S. State Department included the CPP-NPA on its shortlist of allegedly terrorist organizations last September and formally designated them as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” just this August 9, a too-coincidental few days after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to Manila.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) confidence in a military solution has also been buoyed by the prospects of increased U.S. military aid (initially U.S.$ 55 million), the U.S.’ direct if covert participation in combat operations modeled after the joint anti-Abu Sayyaf Group campaign, and a looming 2003 war budget from the national government.

For its part, the civilian government is clearly threatened by the effectiveness of the progressive mass movement in exposing the administration’s foibles and pathologically anti-people policies and practice. The critical open and legal Left is being lumped together with the underground revolutionary movement apparently in an attempt to intimidate the legal organizations with the “all-out war” against the Communist guerillas.

Bayan Muna Party-List representative Satur Ocampo already scored Ms. Arroyo’s declaration as “a policy statement and marching order for the military and police to wage all-out war not only against the CPP-NPA but also against progressive groups critical of her government.” Human rights group Karapatan has already documented 125 cases of violence, including some 50 or so deaths, involving some 2,600 members of people’s organizations and human rights advocates since Ms. Arroyo came to power.

Ocampo’s Bayan Muna seems to be a particular target of attack. To date, 23 leaders and members of Bayan Muna have been killed in the course of their community organizing and political education work. The military and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) reportedly identified some 350 barangays in the recent barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections for increased military deployment, presumably to prevent the election of leaders perceived to be sympathetic to the Left.

Twisting the peace process

Even within the peace process itself there is cause to doubt the GRP’s sincerity. Notwithstanding its publicized peace overtures, the GRP has, in negotiations, persistently sought to avoid genuinely addressing the roots of the current armed conflict.

It has also insisted on imposing the GRP constitution as the overriding framework for the talks and on setting indefinite ceasefires as preconditions. Unfortunately, all these run against formal agreements signed, approved and binding on both the GRP and the NDFP. The NDFP has merely insisted on the need to assiduously adhere to agreements already reached. (see Talking Peace in a Time of War for an account of these)

Last week’s peace pseudo-offensive is consistent with the GRP’s practice. The arbitrarily short timeframe set and a single peace accord, for instance, play to the public’s genuine desire for peace. However, they preclude the painstaking work of genuine negotiations on the social, economic, political and constitutional reforms necessary to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace.

At the same time the GRP is dragging its feet in implementing the landmark Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) signed by the negotiating panels and approved by their respective principals in 1998, and affirmed as binding and effective in 2001. If anything, Justice Secretary Hernani Perez has even persisted in using the promised release of 47 more political prisoners as a bargaining chip.

The GRP knows the NDFP’s stand against capitulation and an unprincipled end to the armed conflict. The malice of the current highly-publicized peace overtures which essentially reiterate previously rejected proposals is then clear: to prompt a collapse of the talks and, in brazen distortion of the facts, portray the revolutionary movement as the party uninterested in peace.

Fomenting crisis

Yet the militarist path augurs the worst for the country in terms of setting back efforts to resolve poverty, increased militarization of the countryside, and repression of political dissent in the cities.

Despite GRP intransigence, the peace talks in principle remain an important venue for democratic discussion of fundamental reforms for addressing the roots of armed conflict. When it comes to radical alternatives no other venue comes close.

The historical experience in turn affirms what comes of unleashing military, police and paramilitary groups in an indiscriminate campaign of repression. Widespread state-sponsored and -instigated human rights violations invariably accompany increased militarization as happened during the Marcos dictatorship, Aquino’s “unsheathing of the sword of war,” Ramos’ Oplan Lambat Bitag and Estrada’s “total war.”

Genuine peace talks aimed at fulfilling the people’s demand for liberation from poverty are important. However it seems that the peace process has been reduced to a black propaganda gimmick and the latest casualty in the GRP’s all-out war. Bulatlat.com

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